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Information content of downwelling skylight for non-imaging visual systems

Ryan Thiermann, Alison Sweeney, Arvind Murugan
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/408989
Ryan Thiermann
1Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL and Department of Physics, UC San Diego, San Diego, CA
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Alison Sweeney
2University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
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Arvind Murugan
3Department of Physics and the James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
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Abstract

Light-sensitive proteins (opsins) are expressed in non-imaging tissues like the brain, dermis and reproductive organs of most animals. Such tissues have been shown to sense the intensity and spectrum of light over time. Functional links to circadian and reproductive rhythms have been speculated but remain uncertain. Here we use information theory to quantify the ‘natural scene’ for non-imaging opsins, i.e., spectral patterns in downwelling skylight. Our approach synthesizes measurements of natural downwelling spectra, atmospheric distortions, and weather, with the biophysical constraints of opsins and biochemical clocks, while minimizing assumptions about how organisms process such information. We find that tissues expressing multiple opsins could use twilight to extract significant information about lunar phase and time of day in many climates. In contrast, information in light intensity is far less robust to atmospheric perturbations. Thus our work quantifies circalunar and circadian regularities in the spectrum of downwelling radiance salient to non-imaging opsins.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted September 07, 2018.
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Information content of downwelling skylight for non-imaging visual systems
Ryan Thiermann, Alison Sweeney, Arvind Murugan
bioRxiv 408989; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/408989
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Information content of downwelling skylight for non-imaging visual systems
Ryan Thiermann, Alison Sweeney, Arvind Murugan
bioRxiv 408989; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/408989

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